The human countenance can be an unparalleled canvas, and accounting for its contours takes great skill. Need proof? Check out this incredible gallery of the work of Russian makeup artist Valeriya Kutsan, whose insane skills turned models into 2-D paintings of 20th-century artists like Mondrian, Lichtenstein, and more.

Classical Greek Statues Dressed Like Hipsters

Léo Caillard photographed hip Parisians in trendy garb, and mapped their clothes onto nude Hellenic sculptures taken from the Louvre. The result? "Hipsters in stone." Check out more of his incredible work here.

America's Abandoned Asylums

Photographer Jeremy Harris has been exploring abandoned asylums, hospitals, and sanitariums across New England and the East Coast for nearly a decade. The results--both Harris's photos and his research into America's often shameful history interring the mentally ill--are as creepy as they are haunting. See more of his work here.

Identical Twins, Not So Identical

Twins are the most obvious thing in photography short of sunsets. Yet in the work photographer Martin Schuller, twins cease to be a cliché, and instead become a powerful subject through which to explore the difference and similarities that exist between all of us in our alternatingly converging and diverging lives. See more here.

Expecting Parents, Sleeping

There is nothing so intimate, unconscious, and vulnerable as the way a couple sleeps when they are expecting a child. Russian photographer Jana Romanova's series Waiting makes this unconscious intimacy and vulnerability her subject, as she sneaks into the attics of pregnant friends and takes pictures of them (with their permission) as they sleep. Read more about her work here.

Juggalos Are Humans, Too

For four days every year, thousands of Juggalos gather for a celebration of the things they hold dear: Insane Clown Posse, drugs, boobs, and food. The Gathering of the Juggalos might appear as clownish to outsiders as the mimish face paint Juggalos wear, but it is surprisingly full of humanity--the subject of Daniel Cronin's incredible work. Check out more of his photos here.

The Apollo Moon Missions

In May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy made a promise to put a man on the Moon--and return him safely--by the end of the decade. Somehow, it worked. To celebrate 50 years of America in space, we posted 50 of our favorite photos of the Apollo moon missions. Look at them here.

The Subway Tunnels Of New York City

How do the subways that lie beneath our cities get dug out? By massive 200-ton drills so big and unwieldy that it's cheaper to bury them beneath the ground after a subway has been finished then dig them back up again. Learn more about the incredibly cool and unbelievably weird construction of subways here.

The World's Hottest Bikes

Think your bike is pretty rad? You ain't seen nothing yet. We collected together some of the coolest, most innovative and drool-inducing rides around. These bikes are so cool, they're enough to make a Huffy explode just by riding by. Check out 11 of the world's hottest bikes here.

The World's Most Amazing Tree Houses

There’s a reason that, for many youngsters, the first real architectural impulse is to want a nest among the trees. But tree houses can retain their magic for adults, too. In fact, thanks to the wonder of modern architectural design, you could easily live in one. Here are 18 of the world's most amazing tree houses.

Extreme Plastic Surgery Done In Classical Style

It would be easy to look at the subjects of Philip Toledano as people so addicted to extreme plastic surgery that they have turned themselves into freaks, but the photographer himself doesn't think we should see them that way. To him, they are vanguards of a future in which our appearance can be whatever we make it out to be. See more of his bizarre portraits of extreme plastic surgery shot in a classical style here.

Illegal Microapartments In Hong Kong

A “small apartment” in New York means something that has fewer than 300 square feet. In Hong Kong, square-footage routinely dips into double digits. You won't think your apartment is small once you see how the people living in Hong Kong's illegal microapartments get by with their space. Take a tour of some of them here.

The Soullessness Of An Amazon Fulfillment Center

In the small English town of Rugeley, the local economy used to depend upon coal mining. Now, it depends upon Amazon. Life is cleaner, true, but it's also a lot more joyless, leaving many Rugeleyans wondering if they didn't have it better when they were digging ore out of the ground. The soulless working conditions of the Amazon fulfillment center in Rugeley is explored here.

The Remains Of Tatooine

More than 35 years after George Lucas changed the landscape of science-fiction with the original Star Wars, a photographer found the ruins of the first movie's Tatooine set crumbling in the Tunisian desert. Explore what's left of the Lars Homestead set, Mos Eisley spaceport, and Beggar's Canyon in this incredible photo set.

The Power Of Genetics

Explore the power that genes, those tiny coiled bits of nucleic acids, exert over the design of an entire organism through the photography of Ulric Collette, who takes portraits of two people who are directly related--say, a father and a daughter or pair of twins--and places them in a split-screen combination. The results are proof of the power of genetics.

Poignant Portraits Of The Homeless

We're all familiar with stereotypes of the homeless: they're often assumed to be addicts and criminals, mentally ill, and possibly dangerous. Ads for food or clothing drives might show a bedraggled person huddled under a blanket, a genre that lets viewers see the homeless as not quite fully human. But the work of photographer Rosie Holtom challenges these pervasive stereotypes, portraying residents at a London shelter in a more positive light. You'd never guess these people live on the streets. More here.

The 16 Best Photo Essays Of 2013

In 2013, photographers brought us to some strange places, and allowed us to meet some even stranger people. Revisit them with us.

One of the best things about writing for a website dedicated to art and design is you're never short of great pictures to look at. Even by that standard, though, 2013 was an embarrassment of riches when it came to fantastic photography, and Co.Design was particularly lucky to be able to play host to some of the best photo series and photographers of the year.

As we head into 2014, we've chosen 16 of our favorite photo essays of the year. The photographers here explored the crumbling ruins of Tatooine, the inside of an Amazon fulfillment center, and the tunnels beneath New York City. They looked at the faces of twins, of juggalos, of plastic surgery patients, and of face-painters. They invited us into the homes of expectant parents, Hong Kong squatters, and modern-day tree dwellers. And that's only to start.

Photo by Jana Romanova

Enjoy our picks for the 16 best photo galleries of 2013 in the slide show above. Here's hoping when we write this list again in 2014, it's even half so rich.

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Try http://ForwardThinkingMuseum.org's online essays from 2013. Among their many outstanding collections, i really love Benoit Paillé's NOCTURNAL LIGHT; Sam Comen's moving portrait of some of the people who hand-pick out food, 'LOST HILLS'; and Stefan Falke's 'La Frontera: Artists along the US/Mexican border'.